HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the set of markup objects inserted in a file (usually called a Web page) to be displayed by a Web browser. The markup tells the Web browser how to display a Web page's words and images for the user. Each individual markup object is referred to as a tag or object, and appears in the page between the “<” and “>” characters.
HTML documents are plain-text (also known as ASCII) files that can be created using any text editor. However, some sophisticated application programs enable an author to design Web pages on a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) basis, rather than editing the plain text.
The following example illustrates a simple Web page that displays the text “Hello world”:
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Hello World</TITLE></HEAD><BODY><P align=“center”>Hello World</P><IFRAME src=“http://www.company.com/banner.htm”</IFRAME></BODY></HTML>
Some of the tags must have corresponding end tags, which appear with the “/” character on their left.
A Web page viewed on a Web terminal (a computer-based system that is able to interpret and display Web pages) may comprise content originating from different companies and domains. For example, an HTML page from the www.ivillage.com domain may include content downloaded from the domain www.ivillage.com, as well as banners downloaded from the domain www. doubleclick. com. This manner of viewing a Web page content is carried out by using HTML tags contained in the HTML page. Each tag may point to a different domain, and thus, the content that is displayed on a Web browser (such as Internet Explorer and the like) running on a Web terminal is downloaded from the domains that the HTML tags point to.
A Web page can be referred to directly from a Web browser (by entering the Web page Uniform Resource Locator (URL), which is the “address” of a file in the Web) or can be embedded within another Web page in the form of an iFrame or Frame or Layer or other (there are also different names in different browsers).
The downloaded Internet page is not necessarily identical to the presented one, since an HTML file may include tags and commands that direct the browser to change the downloaded Web page prior to or after its display. “Changing” an Internet page by the Web browser can be carried out by adding text lines to this Web page, altering the text within said Web page, and so forth. A modification in a downloaded Web page prior to or after its display/execution will be referred to herein as “dynamic change”.
For example, a downloaded HTML page may contain a command for “writing” 10 additional lines. Upon downloading this Web page, the Web browser starts to execute the commands. After executing the command for adding 10 lines, the modified Web page will comprise 10 additional text lines.
The combination of HTML enhancements, scripting language and interface that are used to deliver animation, interactions and dynamic changing on Web pages is called Dynamic HTML (DHTML).
An HTML page may contain other HTML objects such as Frames and/or inline Frames (iFrames) or any other HTML object terminology (the terminology being dependent on the Web browser displaying the HTML page). A Frame or iFrame, for example, is basically an HTML page that appears at a designated position and size in the containing HTML page. As described above, the main HTML page may be downloaded from one domain (for example: www.iVillage.com), while an iFrame within this HTML page may be downloaded from another domain (for example: www.doubleclick.com).
Due to security considerations on the Web browser, an HTML page that is downloaded from one domain cannot dynamically change an HTML page downloaded from another domain. Thus, referring to the previous example, the iFrame downloaded from www.doubleclick.com cannot contain commands that will change an HTML page downloaded from www.iVillage.com and vice versa.
Referring to the above example, DoubleClick provides banner services to several thousands of sites. Since DoubleClick already has banner links (which are usually iFrame) on all the sites using its services, DoubleClick prefers to be able to dynamically change the Web pages that include banners from DoubleClick, due to a variety of reasons, such as animation performed outside the banner boundaries. But since the iFrame in which the banner resides cannot access the page outside this banner, there are obstacles in embodying the animation.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method for dynamically changing a Web page downloaded from one domain by a Web page downloaded from another domain.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.